Hamid Mir refuses to give statement to JIT

KARACHI: Senior journalist and Geo Television anchorperson Hamid Mir, who was critically injured in an armed attack on April 19 in Karachi, has refused to record his statement to a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) owing to the presence of an Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) representative in the team.

The JIT, comprising representatives of seven major law-enforcement and intelligence agencies of the country, was formed by the Sindh Home Department to investigate the armed attack on senior Geo News anchorperson Hamid Mir.

Led by a senior SSP Investigation of the Karachi Police, the JIT includes representatives of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Military Intelligence, Intelligence Bureau, Field Security Wing of the Sindh Rangers, Crime Investigation Department of the police, and a representative of the armed forces.

Sources told The News on Wednesday that the JIT investigators on Wednesday visited the Aga Khan Hospital where Mir was undergoing treatment after he sustained multiple bullet wounds in the deadly attack and asked him to record his statement before the Joint Investigation Team.

The wounded journalist, however, refused to record his statement to the JIT on the plea that it included a representative from the ISI, and he was not comfortable with the presence of an ISI representative in the investigation team.

Sources said the JIT tried to persuade Hamid Mir to record his statement as the team was constituted by the provincial Home Department and his refusal to record the statement before the team amounts to challenging the constitution of the JIT. But they added that Hamid Mir insisted that unless the ISI representative was withdrawn from the team, he would not record his statement or cooperate with the JIT in its investigation.

Sources said Hamid Mir expressed no reservations on the presence of Military Intelligence representative in the JIT and said owing to his suspicion that some persons in the ISI might be behind the attack on him, he could not record his statement to the JIT due to the presence of the ISI representative in the team.

On the other hand, DIG East Karachi Munir Ahmed Shaikh told The News that the Karachi Police were also investigating the attack on Hamid Mir and had recorded the statement of Hamid Mir when he became able to talk to the police after his surgery.

He said the Karachi Police would continue its investigation irrespective of Hamid Mir’s non-cooperation with the JIT as it was the prime responsibility of the police to track down the culprits, who attacked him and produce them before the courts.

The Karachi official said Hamid Mir had not expressed any reservation about the Karachi Police and voluntarily recorded his statement to it, which had now become a part of the investigation and hoped that the police would soon be able to track the criminals behind the attack.He, however, refused to share any progress made by the police investigators in the case and said any breakthrough in the investigation would be shared with the people and the media after the police unearthed the whole conspiracy and reached the real culprits.